Cafe & Restaurant

May 01, 2020

A sharp right-angle corner in the marina and a few canopies over cafes and restaurants along the waters edge. I thought it made an interesting pattern looking across the tops of the parasols. Palm trees simply painted with a small round brush and some dry brush marks, flicked to emulate palm fronds.

Apr 14, 2020

A corner cafe scene dominated by a large date palm tree above. I suggested the spreading fronds with a bit of liberal splattering in a radial pattern. Quite a simple background with the kiosk and car painted around by a fairly light value.

Mar 03, 2020

Another painting of Fivizzano. It's after midday, the weekly market has ended, and the streets are a little quieter. Great location for loads of plein air painting and fabulous views down every street. I went quite loose with this one and made a play of the warm tones of the buildings on the other side of the street.

Feb 11, 2020

For me, it's important to get that first wash down with important base colours. So in this scene of Vernazza on the Cinque Terre, I laid down a blue sky wash, down over the hills with the main colour of the buildings, then to the foreground with the yellow, allowing it to flow into the street. Then with the darks I paint around shapes to define them, like the top border of the village.

Feb 10, 2020

Now and again I do like experimenting with colour. Maybe I can get away with it on a sunny day scene such as this in Fuengirola Spain and a summer day. No, the colours weren't like that on the day, but it was a fun painting and I think I managed to get the values in there. Perhaps too many hard edges?

Jan 22, 2020

Probably keeping to my formula of bands of light and dark down a painting made fairly easy here in this scene from Albufeira, a tourist resort in Southern Portugal. Then I use objects to join up the bands - for example the figure under the shade of the tree and some posts on the left to connect with the middle ground and so on.

Aug 22, 2019

A shady courtyard at the back of a cafe in the French village of Villefranche de Lonchat. I liked the shape of the shadows on the walls, like a 'V' shape and a brightly lit area in the middle. Had some fun painting the stone work of the building - not to much detail.

Apr 18, 2019

Weekly sketch night at my art society, the 'Bristol Savages', and the topic for the night was "This Happy Breed of Men". It was English Night (we also have themed Irish, Scottish and Welsh nights too during our season). So we have 2 hours to produce a painting based on that topic without the use of any reference material (so no cheating looking up on the web).

"This happy breed of men", is a line spoken by John of Gaunt in Shakespeare's Richard II. Well quite an easy option I chose was to have a village scene, two pubs, one of course called John of Gaunt (maybe the other Richard II), and some happy people between the two!

Apr 11, 2019

It's coming! The Annual Exhibition at the Bristol Savages. Loads of paintings from local artists around my local city of Bristol and who are members of the art group. The exhibition is on 26th April to 11th May, and entry is free. The exhibition is at the Red Lodge, Park Row, Bristol, BS1 5LJ and entry is free.

So my entry number eight is a view of a shady cafe in the city of Cagliari.